Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

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Ersh
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Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by Ersh »

So a few days ago I thought I'd give some colours a go, had a pretty clear picture of a composition in my mind so I ventured forth bravely. This turned out to be a right sh*te to work on, I ran out of steam and debated on whether to release it at all. There are things that could be done much better but since it's my first proper colour attempt; I thought I might as well share it.

I wanted the colours of a sunset to permeate the whole thing so I kept it bright and only chose to use some 'false' colours on Tulkk to make him stand out more from the background.

I don't know if I learned anything in the process but I sure as hell gained further respect for artists like MAC that makes it look so easy.

Download .SCR here.

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Seven.FFF
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by Seven.FFF »

It’s cool! You have your own style :(
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by Ralf »

Very nice!

Yes, we could discuss some details. Personally for example I'm not sure about dithering on female hair, looks a bit hmm, automatic and fake. And due to attribute limitations the guy has too radical change from navy colour too other colours at his shoulder.

But generally very nice, as I said.
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by djnzx48 »

Those colours look incredible! They all blend together really nicely, especially the contrasting deep blue. The angle that he's holding his sword at looks maybe a little odd but this is a really well done screen.
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Ersh
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by Ersh »

Ralf wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 1:35 pm Yes, we could discuss some details. Personally for example I'm not sure about dithering on female hair, looks a bit hmm, automatic and fake. And due to attribute limitations the guy has too radical change from navy colour too other colours at his shoulder.
I wanted her hair to appear very smooth so I think the dithering works there. The blue 'patch' on the barbarian's shoulder is supposed to be the shadow of his head (which is slightly bent forward) but I totally agree, he really would need more work.
djnzx48 wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 2:05 pm Those colours look incredible! They all blend together really nicely, especially the contrasting deep blue. The angle that he's holding his sword at looks maybe a little odd but this is a really well done screen.
Yes, it was even more awkward looking earlier on but it still doesn't look right. :?

Thanks guys!
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Joefish
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by Joefish »

I think it looks really good. A few suggestions to tidy it up:

The blue and black look good but I think green is going a step too far.
I think the dithering on the hair is OK as it seems to fade down into the background rather than remaining solid. Though then it doesn't seem to fade into the background on the right-hand side of the image where a stark edge of blue stands out against the clouds. And there's a sharp step on the left-hand side needs blending out. And that cross dot level with her eye stands out.
Might be better making the sword hilt a different colour and the blade yellow.
Also a few dots of detail, windows etc. on the right-hand side of each castle tower and the hill.
And there's a flat line of cloud on the left that could be more swirly.

Personally I try to avoid using anything other than 50:50 dithers, but there's no real option on large areas.
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Ersh
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by Ersh »

Yeah, the green might be pushing it, I thought I could use some 'false' colours to make Tulkk stand out (in greyscale, the saturation is at least correct). I tried adding some details to the castle but found that it looked a little bit too 'cartoony' for my liking. Thanks for the pointers Joe! :)
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by Joefish »

I think white-yellow-cyan-blue-black works OK as a cooler shade in place of going to magenta and red. I've used light yellow and dark cyan as two alternate colours for shading brass pipes.

I think the trick with 'false colours' is to mimic the effect of looking away from a bright colour and seeing its opposite for a moment in darkness. So rather than using red as a darker colour compared to yellow, you can get away with shades of cyan and blue. And why something lit up in cyan can get away with red as a darker complementary shade.
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Ersh
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by Ersh »

False colours doesn't have to be complementary though, if the brightness fits, it's a potentially usable colour. Though the spectrum palette is pretty limited and it tends to look more out of place to me (especially when only used in one spot).
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by Ralf »

Personally I try to avoid using anything other than 50:50 dithers, but there's no real option on large areas.
I also try to use only 50:50 dither in my graphics.

When using different "densities" of dither we get something like this

Image

Personally I dislike such "art". That's what auto-converters from full palette pictures usually produce. So when I see something like this it looks like created by a machine. People don't draw this way.

And the idea of beauty in pixel art is that each pixel is placed consciously by a human ;)
Just my opinion anyway.
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by Einar Saukas »

This picture looks great!

The textures on the girl's right side hair look too regular (it's too obvious they were automatically generated, as Ralf pointed out), also the shape of the guy's left shoulder needs further work. Everything else looks good to me!

IMHO other details like using green are style choices, that's not necessarily wrong. Just my 2 cents...
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Ersh
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by Ersh »

Thanks for the feedback Einar! With the girl's hair I tried to vary the gradient to suggest some volume while still keeping it as straight and smooth as I could, it doesn't bother me half as much as the barbarian (though I like the expression I got on his face).
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by RMartins »

Th lady looks nice, although the image overall looks a bit too bright, at least in parts.
I love the face and hair of the "Barbarian".

There are some proportion issues on the "barbarian".
- The head is too small for his body, but some art freedom, can be exercised here.
- There are some weird proportions on the arms, going from bulky in shoulders to skinny near the hands.
- The rib cage muscles, showing on the left and right side, seem unbalanced, left side looks lower than right.
- The Arm on the left, looks particularly odd, due to the blocky look of the space between the arm and torso.
- The sword, although nice, seems to have too much dark around it, like if it was a dark glow, that looks like trying to avoid blending it with the surroundings

Suggestions, you might get away, with making the "earth"/ground/hill where the castle stands in RED, to make the Castle pop more, with it's magenta color.

Some use of darker shades on the back, on stuff that are far away, like the ground, the castle, etc... could help give it a sense of volume, since the light is coming from the right side, it could be darker on the left side, for example. The Blue background, could also sell a sky that goes from darker to lighter with height.

You have very good "pixeling" skills, but for example in the Lady air, I would try to avoid that squareness feeling that we get from the shading.
It seems that is made of "lego" blocks, instead of a more smooth surface.

Keep on practicing those bold colors, since you are on to something cool.
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Ersh
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by Ersh »

Thanks for the feedback Rmartins! I'll keep practising. :)
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Re: Tulkk – Deliberation. Colour pixel art.

Post by R-Tape »

Ersh wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 10:46 am This turned out to be a right sh*te to work on, I ran out of steam and debated on whether to release it at all.
I'm glad you did, it's a great screen.

Apart from the left hand side arm I think the barbarian is fine. To my eye the proportions are exaggerated enough to fall safely within overmuscled fantasy/comic hero guidelines. Can't be having a puny barbarian.

I like the bold colours that make this a dreamscape, it would be interesting to see someone try a version with more pedestrian colours for comparison (I had a bash this affa and failed miserably, lots of inverted pixels!).
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